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Lab Assistant
Original Poster
#1 Old 6th Jun 2018 at 9:31 PM
Default Why don't we seem to know that much about save corruption in TS3?
This isn't a "fix my game!!!!!" type of post, but one meant to start a discussion about save corruption in TS3, specifically the lack of concrete information out there about how it happens and how to prevent it. Even with a standard suite of corruption-preventing mods (AwesomeMod, MasterController, Overwatch, ErrorTrap and the like), my game starts showing corrupt save crashes after only a couple of generations, and I've found that my search for information about how to remedy and prevent this corruption hasn't really come up with much. This is very much unlike TS2, where causes of save corruption (deleting sims/gravestones/occupied lots, messing around with object NPCs, etc.) were well-documented and largely preventable. So I guess my question is, what can be done in TS3 to prevent save corruption, and why doesn't this information exist as readily as TS2?
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Forum Resident
#2 Old 6th Jun 2018 at 9:50 PM
Save corruption, by and large, isn't extremely prevalent in TS3 as it was in TS2 as far as things that definitely cause it to occur. It still happens, of course, but for completely different reasons. TS2's corruption problems arose mainly due to things such as incomplete character files, poorly coded additions to the game, etc. Also, the gap in releases is larger. TS2 is 14 years old at this point, so the community has had slightly longer to discover exactly what causes these problems and how to avoid them.

TS3's problems, on the other hand, stem from a mix of save bloat due to piss-poor coding, calculations for every sim and their schedules in an open world, things like the memory system adding to the bloat, the list goes on. Not to mention the fact that, like TS2, TS3 uses a 32 bit executable, which means it can only access a maximum of 4GB of ram at any time, and even then not all of it. The answer to your question is quite simply that the information doesn't exist to be readily available. The farthest anyone has ever gotten in squashing some of TS3's problems is Twallan and the NRaas maintainers. Even then, as I stated, these mods only address surface level problems. TS3 would basically need an overhaul under the hood to fully utilize modern hardware and get rid of long standing problems with the engine itself. Which, as we all know, is never going to happen as long as EA's in charge.
Lab Assistant
Original Poster
#4 Old 7th Jun 2018 at 6:17 AM
Hmm, gotcha. I guess I've never had many problems with poor hardware utilization and save file bloat because my game seems to start dying long before that. I think a lot of the worst TS3 problems come from travelling processes, as well as hibernation and re-instantiation during free vacation/boarding school events. I try to limit the amount of traveling I do for this reason, and deny the free vacation opportunities. I also limit my interaction with sims from other worlds for this reason--I've read that marrying foreign/university sims can easily cause corruption, and I'm pretty sure this killed one of my saves a while back. I also remember Pescado saying on MATY that the WA worlds are pretty FUBAR in a lot of ways, and that it's wise to not leave them to their own devices for long.
Mad Poster
#5 Old 7th Jun 2018 at 3:09 PM
I've lost three older Mod-free saves to corruption after social workers took children away so I know that the social worker apprehanding a baby,toddler or child in the game from an active or inactive family in the town can corrupt the save though it happens faster if your base game is a 2011 or 2012 release of the game.Mine is 2011 and I got corrupted saves from social workers improperly deleting children they took.It happened first with Malcolm Landgraab beint taken for failing school.Claire Ursine's baby was taken in another save and my family's baby was taken in the third save to become corrupted by the social worker.They all ended up so corrupted that they became unplayable and the last one had the UI failure and eventually refused to load.
Lab Assistant
Original Poster
#6 Old 8th Jun 2018 at 6:43 AM
Today I got a script error where my active sim was scolded for being a rude houseguest when he tried to sleep in his own bed (by his baby son no less), and he started rolling wants to get a raise when he's retired. I think the end is nigh for this save.
Mad Poster
#7 Old 9th Jun 2018 at 10:14 AM
That's one thing that can happen after a child was taken by a social worker even from an inactive family as I had a toddler able to flirt,make out and woo hoo with his mum once in a corrupted save where my active family at the time the social worker came had their baby taken.It started to get corrupted after the baby got taken and I also had adult glitching to toddler height with adult heads who could only do pet or toddler interactions and some died of starvation from that glitching.I knew that save was toast when the UI failed to load the last time I tried to play it and it kept failing to load with a message telling me the save was corrupted and couldn't be opened.
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